As Congress begins the perennial process of deciding how to spend the people’s money, a timely study shows some degree of bipartisan support for cutting defense and raising taxes to lower deficit spending.
But a deeper dive reveals divisive partisanship in precisely where and how deep to cut, as well as how much to tax.
Among the eight states targeted in the national study, which allowed registered voters to tinker with the tax code and rearrange spending priorities, Ohio participants cut spending the most and doubled the national average at reducing a budget deficit through a combination of cuts and tax hikes.
“Ohioans actually had more bipartisan consensus about how to reduce the deficit than any of the eight states,” said Steven Kull, a director and project lead at the University of Maryland’s School of Public Policy, which conducted the interactive study. “Clearly when Ohioans look at the deficit it bothers them. And they think steps need to be taken.
The study gives average Americans the ability to play chief economist with the nation’s piggybank while collecting opinions on the size and role of government.
In an online simulation, participants can view the nation’s debt on a timeline. Players then get to toy with a $394 billion budget deficit, based on the spending proposal put forward last year by President Barack Obama.
Participants, acting like they ruled Congress, upped taxes on the wealthy — a move that got “very high support among Republicans and Democrats in Ohio” — and slashed spending from education, foreign aid, the military, the environment and natural resources, agriculture, defense, transportation and other departments.
Last year, Kull conducted another national study targeting Maryland, Oklahoma and Virginia (a blue, a red and a swing state). The goal then was to crowd-source solutions for budgetary, operational and policy concerns surrounding Social Security, the U.S. Postal Service and the nuclear deal with Iran.
In this presidential election year, analysis of the budget simulation included additional details on the performance of registered voters in the big swing states of Ohio and Florida and the partisan states of Texas, New York and California.
United by debt
Nationally, 94 percent of Republicans and 70 percent of Democrats considered debt reduction a top priority. Republicans, slashing on average $49 billion from their fictitious federal budgets, came close to the $50 billion in cuts suggested by Democrats.
Both groups cut from many of the same places, including military and defense spending. In Ohio, Republicans and Democrats together were twice as effective at reducing the national debt. Buckeye players averaged $104.3 billion in deficit reductions ($25 billion in cuts and $79.3 billion in revenue increases) versus a national average of $51.9 billion ($10 billion in cuts and $41.9 billion in upped revenues).
In Ohio, more than half of Republican and Democratic players also agreed to impose or increase taxes on incomes over $200,000, capital gains and dividends, the nation’s 100 largest firms, sugary drinks, alcohol and carryover interest, which they agreed should be treated as normal income.
Kull, the study’s lead author, founded Voice of the People, a nonpartisan nonprofit that engages and empowers the public. The organization is taking the apparent consensus on taxation and military cuts — something snubbed by several presidential candidates — to Congress. Kull spoke Wednesday with Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York and with the chief of staff for Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, a Democrat, on Tuesday. He also plans to speak with Sen. Rob Portman, an Ohio Republican, and other lawmakers from the eight states.
“There’s a lot of interest and a fair amount of surprise that citizens can solve this kind of problem,” Kull said of the series of meetings and presentations on Capitol Hill.
Deficit divides
But that’s where the bipartisan Kumbaya ends as the exercise shows that Democrats are willing to raise taxes, on average, six times higher than Republicans to reduce the national deficit. Nationally, Republicans supported $41.9 billion in revenue increase while Democrats added $237 billion in fees and taxes.
How deep and where they cut spending also is a point of contention.
In Ohio, for example, Democrats were willing to cut three times more defense spending than Republicans. Republicans proposed cuts to K-12 education, science, medical research, transportation and global health, whereas Democrats wanted to maintain funding levels for each.
Ohio Democrats pumped $2 billion more into higher education and pollution prevention, the only categories to get more funding from either party in the priority-based exercise. Republicans, on the other hand, cut higher education and pollution mitigation by $4 billion.
Doug Livingston can be reached at 330-996-3792 or dlivingston@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow on Twitter: @DougLivingstonABJ.